


Keep My Head Down, Keep My Chin Up

by Sohotthateveryonedied



Series: Whumptober 2019 [27]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Beating, Blood and Injury, Child Abuse, Dick is a good friend, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Prompt: Beaten, Wally West is abused, Wally's Dad Is An Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 02:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21219320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sohotthateveryonedied/pseuds/Sohotthateveryonedied
Summary: “You okay?” Wally nods silently. “What happened?”Wally keeps his face turned downward so Dick can’t see. His voice is thick when he says, “I—I left my backpack on the kitchen table again, and…” He trails off, but Dick can imagine what happened all too easily. “It was bad this time.”





	Keep My Head Down, Keep My Chin Up

**Author's Note:**

> Day 28: Beaten
> 
> Title from "Good Kid" from The Lightning Thief Musical because I'm trash.

The sound of Dick’s phone blasting the _ Little Einsteins _ theme song jostles him from sleep. Not bothering to open his eyes, he fumbles under his pillow until his fingers close around his cell.  
  
“Y’ello?” he answers, rubbing his sleepy eyes.  
  
_ “Sorry,” _ Wally’s voice comes in shakily, _ “I...Did I wake you up?” _  
  
“No, dude, it’s totally—” Dick yawns. “Totally cool. What’s up?” He glances at his alarm clock. Two in the morning.  
  
_ “I’m coming over.” _ There’s no explanation, no reasoning, and that’s what has Dick sitting up in bed—sleep already forgotten. Because Wally only ever does this for one reason, and one reason only.  
  
Trying not to imagine the worst, Dick goes to his window and unhooks the latch. Less than fifteen seconds later there’s a gust of wind, a dark blur, and suddenly Dick’s got a bundle of speedster attached to him like an aggressive koala.  
  
Dick drops his phone and hugs Wally back automatically, maneuvering them to sit on the bed. Wally’s shaking. He buries his face in Dick’s shoulder like he wants to disappear from the world altogether. He’s wearing pajama pants and a Captain Marvel sweatshirt with the hood up. His feet are bare.  
  
“What did he do?” Dick asks. Because Wally is only ever like this when _ he _ does something, bastard that he is.  
  
Wally just shakes his head, hair tickling Dick’s neck where strands peek out of his hood. Dick doesn’t push any further (yet) and rubs Wally’s back the way Bruce does to him after a bad dream. It usually seems to help.  
  
It’s not the first time this has happened by a long shot, so Dick is familiar with the drill by now. Like him, Wally is a vastly tactile person. When words fail, physical contact is the only thing that can calm him down and bring him out of the dark twisties in his head. _ Then _ they can talk it out.  
  
A few minutes later, when Dick is on the second paragraph of the English essay he’s mentally outlining for next week’s due date, Wally finally lets go. He moves back on the bed so he’s sitting next to Dick rather than half in his lap, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.  
  
Dick turns to face him. “You okay?” Wally nods silently. “What happened?”  
  
Wally keeps his face turned downward so Dick can’t see. His voice is thick when he says, “I—I left my backpack on the kitchen table again, and…” He trails off, but Dick can imagine what happened all too easily. “It was bad this time.”  
  
Dick’s teeth grind together. “What an asshole.”  
  
Wally nods. “And he was drunk again, so he was already pissed even without me making things worse.” His voice is hoarse, like he’s forcing the words through a cheese grater.  
  
“How bad?”  
  
Wally wraps his arms around his middle, bowing in on himself.  
  
“Come on, Walls. It’s okay.” He hates it when Wally gets like this. Hates, hates, _ hates _ it. On nights like these, it’s like the regular Wally West takes a train to Canada and leaves a shell in his place—one who is meek and reserved and _ scared. _ It hurts to watch.  
  
Wally swallows thickly. Slowly, he reaches up and takes down his hood with a sniffle. Dick reaches back to turn on his bedside lamp, and when the light illuminates Wally’s face Dick gasps.  
  
“Jesus _ Christ, _ Wally.”  
  
Wally involuntarily flinches at the harsh tone, so Dick forces the boiling in his blood down to a simmer. It’s not easy. Not when a gigantic bruise mottles half of his best friend’s face and he can see dried blood smeared over his split lip. His eyes are glassy. Ashamed.  
  
Worst of all is his hand. Wally’s drawn so little attention to it that Dick didn’t even notice, but now Wally can’t hide the blood dried down to his fingertips. There are shards of glass embedded in his palm, and Dick can’t imagine how painful it must be.  
  
Dick swallows back bile and stands, heading towards the closet. Alfred installed a mini fridge in here last year when Dick was holed up for a week with the flu. It’s come in handy many a night like this one. And, of course, the first-aid kit on the top shelf is a necessity.  
  
He grabs an ice pack and tosses it to Wally, who thanks him quietly and presses it against his swollen cheek with a wince.  
  
Dick sits back on the bed, legs crossed and facing Wally while he opens up the kit. Just looking at the bruises on Wally’s face makes his gut swirl, so he focuses on his hand instead and takes out a pair of tweezers. “This needs to stop happening.”  
  
Now that his eyes have adjusted, he can see that the bruises don’t stop with Wally’s face. There are thick, finger-shaped marks poking out of the collar of his sweatshirt. Every time he moves he hunches in on his left side, suggesting he fucked up some ribs as well. It’s sickening.  
  
Wally watches Dick gingerly pull glass out of his skin, teeth digging into the cut on his lip. “I know.”  
  
“We need to tell someone. Bruce, Barry, the police.” He wiggles out a particularly large shard, trying to ignore Wally’s trembling. “Hell, we’ll get the League involved if we have to.”  
  
A sigh. “I know.”  
  
“So why don’t you?” Dick demands, looking up. “This has been going on for _ years, _ Wally. Your dad is a monster. You can’t keep covering for him.”  
  
Wally doesn’t meet his eyes. “He’s been getting better.”  
  
“You said that last time. And the time before that. And the time before _ that.” _  
  
“Yeah, but—”  
  
“But nothing,” Dick says, cutting him off. He double-checks he got all of the glass out, then reaches for the bottle of antiseptic. No doubt Wally will be fully healed in a few hours, but Dick needs to keep his hands busy, otherwise he might resort to punching pillows.  
  
And he knows he’s being pushy—that Wally is fragile right now and should be handled with delicacy—but Dick can’t help it. He can’t keep watching his friend get hurt, all the while _ knowing _ that there’s a way to make it stop.  
  
“I can’t keep sitting back and letting this happen,” he says. “I should have reported it the day you told me.”  
  
Alarm flashes in Wally’s eyes. “You promised you wouldn’t.” He hisses as Dick starts carefully wiping down his palm, cleaning away the blood and disinfecting the many gouges in his skin.  
  
“I know,” Dick says, “and I’m not going to break that promise without your permission. But.. _ .god, _ Wally. Look at what he _ did _ to you.” As if to prove his point, he moves on to wiping the blood crusted on Wally’s lip.  
  
“It’s not as bad as it looks.”  
  
Dick takes a deep breath. He drops the alcohol-soaked pad on the bed and puts his hands on Wally’s shoulders, forcing him to make eye contact. “Wally. This is _ abuse. _ I _ know _ you know that. Why do you keep letting him hurt you like this?”  
  
Wally’s green eyes are glassy, breath shuddering. “He’s my dad,” he whispers, voice cracking.  
  
Dick takes out a roll of bandages. “He doesn’t _ deserve _ to be your dad. And every time you call and have me patch you up it just keeps getting worse. Remember when he broke your collarbone?”  
  
Wally grimaces at the memory. But still insists, “That one wasn’t so bad. It healed in a couple days.”  
  
“You realize that’s a fucked-up way to rationalize it, right? The fact that you can heal yourself only makes it worse.”  
  
“It makes it easier.”  
  
“Yeah—easier for you to believe you deserve this shit. You _ don’t _ deserve to be hurt, Walls. Nobody does.” He finishes wrapping Wally’s hand and knots the bandage securely in place.  
  
“I’m...I’m dealing with it, okay?”  
  
Dick arches an eyebrow. He gestures to Wally’s face. _ “This _ is what you call dealing with it? Dude, you’re a _ superhero. _ ‘Dealing with it’ should mean getting your uncle or the police involved, or even fighting back yourself! You could take out guys bigger and stronger than your dad in your _ sleep.” _  
  
“That’s different. My dad’s not a supervillain, he’s just…”  
  
“An asshole? Even better, because that’s something we can _ deal with. _ If we tell someone, we can get you out of that house and in a place where you don’t have to walk around _ terrified _ all the time. It’s not safe, Wally.”  
  
“I _ know,” _ Wally snaps, lifting the ice from his face so he can fully glare at Dick. “I know, okay? I know this is fucked up and that I should fight back or run or get someone or—I _ know.” _  
  
Wally picks at his bandage, eyes downcast. “I just…” He bites his lip. “Not yet, okay? I need time to...think. Process.”  
  
Dick bites back the dozens of arguments waiting to burst from behind his tongue. “But soon, right?”  
  
Wally nods. “Soon.”  
  
It’s not ideal, but Dick supposes that’s the best he’s going to get. He tries to give Wally as reassuring a smile as he can. “Good. Because you really don’t deserve any of this. You know that, right? You’re a good person, Walls. No matter what your dad tells you, none of it is your fault.”   
  
He waits for something. Another nod, maybe. But Wally just lets out a deep, shuddering breath, like hearing the truth compressed something in his rib cage.  
  
Dick knows it’s not easy for him to let in the words contradicting what he hears every day at home, berating him with insults and hatred and convincing him that he _ deserves _ to be treated this way. That his lot in life is to be hurt. That everything is his fault.  
  
_Worthless. Pathetic. Weak. Idiot. Waste of space._  
  
At least he’s not openly denying it this time, which Dick is going to count as a win. A teeny, tiny, microscopic win.  
  
“Sorry,” Wally says, finally looking up. “Thanks, for—for helping me out. I’ll get out of your hair.”  
  
But Dick shakes his head. “Wally, it’s fine. Bruce won’t mind if you sleep over, and I sleep better with people around anyway.” Wards off the ghosts.  
  
Wally bites his lip. “You sure?”  
  
“Totally.” Dick shoves the first-aid junk off the bed and draws back the comforter, getting comfortable. He then lifts the corner in open invitation. After a moment Wally surrenders and crawls in beside him, turning off the lamp with his good hand.  
  
“Thanks,” Wally says again once he’s settled. “Sorry.”  
  
“Quit apologizing, all right? It’s not your fault.”  
  
Wally sniffles in the darkness. “I know. My brain knows it’s not. Just...Just feels like it is sometimes.”  
  
“Well it’s not,” Dick says, trying to pour as much sincerity into the words as possible. “You don’t deserve abuse—you never did. Got it?”  
  
He turns over to see the nod of Wally’s silhouette, and he knows he doesn’t believe it. It’s clear in the way his breaths hitch and in the way he curls closer to Dick until his head is pillowed on his shoulder.  
  
That’s okay, though. Dick will just have to keep reminding him until, eventually, Wally starts to believe him. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Feel free to mosey on down to my Tumblr!](http://sohotthateveryonedied.tumblr.com/)


End file.
